


Dead or Alive

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:19:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plaintive call of a lonely shrike warbled eerily over the sun-baked, dry grassed hills. Although, to be honest, Charlie was taking that on faith; Adam’s was the only shrike she’d ever heard. She pursed her lips and whistled back like he’d taught her. Time to get to work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead or Alive

The plaintive call of a lonely shrike warbled eerily over the sun-baked, dry grassed hills. Although, to be honest, Charlie was taking that on faith; Adam’s was the only shrike she’d ever heard. She pursed her lips and whistled back like he’d taught her. Time to get to work.

_Warm, gin-sweet breath tickled Charlie’s lips. Adam sprawled on top of her in the narrow, rented bed, the heavy weight of him on the verge of being too-hot, too-sticky._

_‘Like this,’ he said and kissed her. His tongue dipped between her lips and curled, breath trembling between them. ‘We hear the shrike and we know the other guy’s found the bounty.’_

_Charlie wrapped her arms around him, twining her fingers in his cropped, sandy hair._

_‘Or a shrike looking for a one night stand,’ she said._

_He laughed and rolled off her, grabbing his clothes to get dressed. Charlie stretched the ache out of her muscles, curling her toes, and got up. A worn flannel hung over the old, china blue wash basin. Charlie washed under her arms and between her legs, stripping the smell of sex off her skin._

_‘So, what did this guy do?’ she asked._

_He buckled a sword-belt around his narrow hips and glanced at her. ‘Does it matter?’_

It didn’t. Charlie had read the bond anyhow: highway robber, murder and probably worse they’d not caught him doing. That he deserved it, made it easier. This time.

She hitched her bow up onto her back and loped towards the sound of Adam’s voice, ducked low to stay out of sight. He was waiting for her in the shade of a hill, gesturing for her to hit the dirt next to him.

‘He’s there,’ he said.

‘Good,’ Charlie said. ‘I’d had to think flashing my boobs got us bad info.’

Adam laughed soundlessly, looping his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her in for a quick, rough kiss. ‘Those boobs get only the best info,’ he said, giving her an appreciative grope. ‘Just maybe need me to flash my balls next time too; our man has company.’

Not good news. Charlie belly crawled to the top of the hill and peeked over, squinting down at the small campsite below. One tent - four horses. Greg Hanstock wasn’t the sort of man to have three spare horses in his string.

‘Friends of his?’ she asked, not looking away from the tent as she pulled her bow around and loaded a quarrel with steady, confident fingers. ‘Or victims.’

The coldness in her voice made her cringe. She didn’t sound like Nora. She wanted to sound like Nora, but it came out as Rachel every time. Adam didn’t notice. He didn’t notice much if it wasn’t going to get him drunk, laid or paid. That was what she liked about him.

‘No idea,’ he rubbed his knuckle over his jaw, scraping through stubble about a week from becoming a beard. ‘Look on the bright side. Any friend of Gregory down there, they’re going to have a bounty on their head too. Victims, well, they’re more trouble but with luck they’ll have a reward.’

Charlie twisted her mouth. ‘Altruistic as always.’

‘Huh?’

‘Nothing.’ Charlie twisted around onto her hip, angling the bow. ‘Got a light?’

Adam smirked, she was pretty damn sure he wasn’t as dim as he liked to pretend, and tugged a pack of lucifers out of his pocket, ripping one off and striking it with a wisp of smoke and a stink of sulphur. He put the flame to the alcohol soaked rags twisted around the arrow. They went up with a flash, making him swear and snatch singed fingers back. Charlie turned and aimed, squinting through the heat waver of the burning blue and violet fumes. A twitch of her finger and the bow jolted hard against her shoulder, the arrow arching down towards the tent. It hit the grubby beige of the tent and flared, great, glowing rings of fire eating through the canvas like it was melting it.

From their vantage point, Adam and Charlie watched with interest.

‘What’s he soaked that in, then?’ Adam asked curiously.

‘Turps and gin?’ Charlie suggested, raising her eyebrows.

Three men came stumbling out of the tent, tripping over each other as they tried to get out first. They were coughing, eyes watering from the smoke, and one of them was beating the flames out of his beard.

‘I guess it was friends,’ Adam said, pushing himself up onto his feet and drawing his sword in one smooth - ish - motion. If you’d never Miles fight, it would have been impressive. ‘Can’t see anyone wanting to kidnap that look.’

‘The guy with the cinders in his beard?’ Charlie said, slinging her bow and drawing her own sword. She felt it catch, a rough edge scraping, and ignored the grumble of Miles’ voice in her head. ‘Bank robber, isn’t he?’

‘Good eye,’ Adam grinned. ‘Good bounty on him.’

‘Up my cut to half?’ Charlie suggested as they ran down the hill.

Adam snorted at her.

Cinder-beard say them coming, his mouth gaping open behind a grey, ragged moustache. He turned and lunged for the burning tent, swearing and slapping as he tried to grab a weapon. Adam tugged his gun from his belt and, almost lazily, fired. The bullet hit Cinder-beard in the head, just over his ear. It sprayed out the other side in a pop of blood, brains and bone.

Then they hit camp. Greg howled and lunged at them, swinging an axe with more fervor than technique. The other man decided he didn’t actually any of them that much and ran for the horses.

Adam dodged the blade of the axe, losing a chunk of his jacket, and went after the runner, leaving Charlie with the mad axe-man. Usually she appreciated no-one trying to ‘protect’ her from things, but there were times she missed Miles.

She snorted, catching the axe-haft on angle of her blade and grunting with the impact. That was a lie. She missed Miles a lot. He was the only family she had - and just like the rest of her family she couldn’t trust him to tell her the truth or put her first.

Didn’t mean she didn’t miss him. Didn’t mean she was going to be ok with anything that happened.

Sweating and swearing, Greg wrenched at the axe. Charlie kicked him in the knee, toe catching soft, poppable cartilage with a nasty crunch, and stabbed him in the stomach, knife sliding between his ribs into the soft, bloody organs.

Adam had taught her that. Rough hands cupped around hers, slotting into her knuckles, and showing her where to stab. It had turned murder into something between a kata and a seduction. Oh, Uncle Miles knew how to fight dirty - but he’d always acted like it was beneath Charlie.

Effective though. Blood oozed between the hand Greg clamped to his side, bubbles of it popping on his lips as he stared at her with huge, baffled eyes. For a minute he looked heart-breakingly like Danny, but Charlie always thought that about the soon to be dead. It was something in the lost, oddly childish glaze of their eyes, the confusion.

It hadn’t been meant to be like this, those eyes said. I was meant to live forever, I was meant to get away…I was supposed to be a hero.

Except in the end it was always going to be like this. No matter how many times you cheated death or scraped a plan through by the skin of your teeth, one day you’d be dying and it would be a horrible surprise.

He dropped the sword first and then joined it on the ground, knees hitting the dust with a thud. Charlie swallowed her sympathy, remembered his list of crimes and kicked him onto his back to die.

Adam had already taken down the other man, blood splattering over the flanks of the dancing and snorting horses. He hummed to himself as they cleaned up, lashing the dead over the nervy horses. Adam was in a good mood, whistling to himself as looped rope around pale, darkening fingers. It was a good haul, two bounties at least and four horses to sell.

It bothered Charlie more. Less than it used to.

Technically, Adam wasn’t a bounty hunter. To be a hunter, you had to sometimes bring the bounty in alive. He was a bounty killer. Bring ‘em in, dead or...oops, he’s dead.

Charlie left him to it and kicked through the ashes of the tent, finding a couple of melted gold coins and fire-weakened knives. She took the gold. It used to make her feel guilty; still dead - but a lot less. She wondered if this had been what happened to Miles and Monroe.

Two bounties, two horses and two chits from the slaughterhouse for the spavined, old mares. It wasn’t quite as much as Adam had hoped, but it was good enough that the news didn’t put a dent in his good mood. He tugged Charlie down in his lap, kissing her noisily.

‘You're my lucky charm. You and me, sweetheart, we’re going to be rich,’ he said. 

Charlie twisted her arms around his neck and smiled crookedly, ‘What are we going to do when he are?’

He slid his hands up under her shirt and laughed against her mouth. ‘Fuck if I know. We’ll be rich, we can do whatever we like.’

He wasn’t a good man, Charlie knew that, but he was handsome, good in bed and she was so tired of heroes who left her behind. Maybe a bad guy was just what she needed.

  
  


 


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